


the cypress trees

by spikeface



Category: Inception (2010), Mary Poppins (1964)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-14
Updated: 2013-02-14
Packaged: 2017-11-29 05:55:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/683612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spikeface/pseuds/spikeface
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mary Poppins AU. Eames, the child of Mary Poppins and Bert Eames, rebels against his mother and his heritage in the wake of his father's death by joining the military. He quickly becomes involved with the PASIV project, as well as Arthur Darling and Robert Fischer. But the past, Eames learns, is difficult to escape—even for someone who is practically perfect in every way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

****

Part One

When Eames is six years old, he scrawls a picture of the beach on a sidewalk and runs away to live in it.

His father finds him sniffling five hours later, unburnt by the chalk-drawn sun. Eames is almost too big to be carried now, but his father scoops him up anyway. "Your mum's been looking for you."

"She'll never find me." Eames grumbles, wiggles his face under his father's pointy chin. 

"O' course she will. Mary can find any child in all the world—her precious boy quickest of all." His father has a habit of smiling even when he looks sad. "And you know, I think she'd love a picnic on your beach when she gets back."

His father sets him down and picks up the chalk Eames left on the sidewalk. With a few strokes of his deft, dirty hands, Eames can suddenly hear all the seagulls that he was missing and taste the heavy salt in the air. 

They sit on the sand for another hour and Eames knows exactly where he is, who is there and who is not.

\+ + +

His father doesn't look the same once he's dead.

He's so small and frail, and his face looks like putty without a smile to shape it. The cancer had ravaged him for two brutal months, but even on the worst days he'd had a smile for Mary, watched her like she had all the answers.

"My magical boy," his father had said to him, near the end. "Practically perfect in every way—just like her."

He'd sounded so proud, as if Eames' pitiful talents were an achievement instead of a slap in the face. 

What good were tea parties on the ceiling when they couldn't accomplish something as simple as removing a tumor?

\+ + +

Mary finds him after the wake.

She's been at his father's side since the diagnosis, more or less, and she's worn the same expression the whole time: vaguely threatening, oddly fascinating, a smile lurking somewhere in the prim line of her mouth that is impossible to disobey. 

How the children she cares for must love her.

"You're still here," Eames bites. 

"Darling," Mary begins to say before she pauses, her voice still lovely and musical, but twenty-two years have taught Eames not to expect much from her. 

His father is dead and this isn't a problem that can be ameliorated by medicine that tastes like sticky toffee pudding, or a song that cleans a messy room. Those are the only kinds Mary can fix. She can chat with the Man in the Moon, but she can't give Eames the one thing he wants more than anything.

He lights a cigarette, knows full well Mary had always hated anything that smelled of smoke.

"I need to return to work," she ends up saying. "I've already been away too long."

Away from children who need a nanny. Eames isn't a child anymore.

"I'm joining the army," he tells her, because it's the most hateful thing he can think to say. 

Mary's mouth thins. "If that's what you'd like."

She gives him a photograph of his father. It's rumpled and old, his father's face creased where the picture had been folded. He knows immediately that she must have taken the picture: his father is grinning too wide for it to be anyone else, the corners of his smile too close to wistfulness. Eames wonders if Mary couldn't see it, how much she hurt him every time she left—or maybe she just didn't care.

She's gone before Eames can tell her never to come back.

\+ + +

In the end, Eames climbs into the picture even though it's hopeless; the dead lose their vivacity even in photographs.

It's cold and stale, the way things from cameras sometimes are, divorced from a loving hand. There's an old chair that's hiding just out of the frame, so he pulls it out and dusts it off. He sits with his father's empty smile and realizes that being practically perfect in every way isn't worth a bloody thing.

\+ + +

He's at basic training three weeks later.

\+ + +

The army is everything his father would have hated.

It's a cage shaped with barracks and uniforms and ritual hazing. He can't count the stars at night, can't spend an afternoon in a new straw hat eating raspberry cakes. His time is carved into reps of ten, endless exercises, tuneless call and response, edible but uncreative slop in mess, awkward fumbling in the dark with boys who pretend to be men.

It's difficult to do things the way they want him to: to swim through the water instead of walking under it, to take his gun apart himself instead of letting the parts do their own work. He refuses to engage the plants in conversation, but he can't help it when they tell him where all of his enemies are hiding. Plants do love games. 

Night simulations are the hardest: the stars offer constantly to give him a ride from one place to another, especially the young ones, still so chatty in their winking language. He knows they must gossip about him behind his back. 

He wonders if they talk to her.

He left no address, but Mary could find him if she wanted. She could waltz right into his dreams and call him back with her high clear voice, but she doesn't. He doesn't see or hear from her at all as he trains day and night, runs all the circles his instructors tell him to run, falls asleep too tired to draw. He scrubs the Cockney out of his voice, slows his words to a crawl until he's sure he won't break into song. He can wear any cage he chooses and shed it like old skin. 

His life is boring and colorless—everything he's never had.

And then he gets drunk.

\+ + +

Eames is very good at drinking games, but he's never played them with bored, horny soldiers.

They keep singing and drinking and drinking and wanting to know something he's never done, and Eames can't _tell_ them because he's never done a hundred things, too busy playing hide and seek with dolphins. The drunker he gets, the funnier it gets, and the more he laughs, the more everything around him laughs, until he's almost certain the furniture is laughing too, and any moment someone is going to _notice_ , so he grabs the first man he sees and kisses him.

Decorum degenerates quickly from there.

\+ + +

Mary had explained once, with only a little stiffness, that everyone in their family found a kind of specialty. Hers, for instance, was singing. Uncle Albert's was laughing. His father's was drawing.

Eames wakes up, sore and kissed all over, and considers that his might be fucking.

\+ + +

He can't quite remember what happened except everyone he passes is humming some song he can't recognize, and even the bloody water he uses to wash his face off—he's covered in lipstick—is tittering at him as it rushes out of the spout. He's just beginning to wonder what anyone else remembers when two men in suits appear, ask him to accompany him and rudely refuse to share their names. 

Eames is so hungover he goes quietly, hopes that whatever officer he's about to get dressed down from keeps a picture or two in his office, or at the very least an umbrella.

\+ + +

"That was by far the most entertaining prank I've ever seen, Mr. Eames." The man's name is Stephen Miles. He's government, not military.

He calls himself a _liaison_.

He shows Eames pictures collected from this morning: beds on the roof, soldiers strewn on the crossbeams in mess, naked and passed out, food everywhere, arranged in neat chorus lines. 

Eames winces.

But they don't intend to interrogate him. They don't even want to discharge him.

"We'd like you to volunteer for an experimental form of training." 

"That's quite an offer," Eames prevaricates, wondering what they know about him. "Why me?"

"It's about adaptability." Miles's explanation sounds rote, like he gives it to soldiers all the time—not just to the ones home-schooled by a tired Match Man and erudite penguins. "Your records show a high propensity for creativity in difficult situations. We need people who can think on their feet."

"You need a guinea pig."

"We have guinea pigs," Miles says. He has his father's accent. "They're not creative at all."

Eames signs all of their waivers.

\+ + +

At first, he wakes up in a pale room, a cool cement floor beneath him, and nothing in his pockets.

He can't breathe.

Eames has been wandering in and out of worlds since he was old enough to toddle, but none of them are like this one: everything around him is a swirling stream of potential. The building ripples as he struggles to contain it. He's feverish, objects waving back and forth in front of him, growing and shrinking, everything so fragile and unstable Eames can _feel_ this entire world shivering into stardust.

Eames forces himself to breathe—draws this awful, bland place into him with every inhale.

When he stands up, he feels the world settle around him as he firms it up with his own determination. There are people in it now, ignoring him, watching their feet as they walk. They seem so very small, so very far away; every step Eames takes makes him feel like a titan, like the world is shuddering beneath him, but he manages to go down the stairs and out the door into the wet autumn air that feels far too reminiscent of London for comfort. He's wet and itchy and suddenly everything feels dirty; he needs to be up and away in the sharp fresh air.

He snaps his fingers until he's on a ship sailing for the clouds, rocking gently under his feet like a cradle. The building is an island now, receding into the distance. 

All the little people on it are staring up at him, their expressions unified. 

He turns to the prow, breathes in air growing chillier from the altitude. He wouldn't say no to tea at the moment, or someone to share it with.

"What the hell is going on?"

Eames spins, caught off guard, and finds a man standing ten feet away, hand hovering over his gun. If it weren't for the flat American accent Eames would wonder if he'd snapped him into existence too. He's handsome, smartly dressed, hair slicked back unattractively but his mouth all the more kissable for it.

His lapel is trying to say something, but it's on the inside, muffled by the man's chest. The how and why of his whereabouts trickle back into Eames' brain. He smiles. "Our course is set for Orion but I can change it, if you like."

The man shifts his weight. His hand is still on his bloody gun—who'd come armed to a place like this?—but then he seems to settle. "You should put up railings or something. We could fall off."

Eames flips the ship instead, so now the sea is the sky. He can't help grinning when the American falls to the deck, proper soldierlike. "If you keep clinging like that, you really will fall."

The man glares at him.

Eames offers a hand up. "I'm Eames, by the way."

The man doesn't take it as he stands. "I know who you are."

Eames can nearly make out what the man's coat is chanting, but not quite. If he suggests the man take his coat off he'll know what Eames is about, and if he gets too aggressive he'll reach for his gun.

Best to play to his strengths, then.

He grabs the man by his coat and kisses him. 

The man makes an aborted noise, lips soft but dry and clenched with surprise. It's not a good kiss by any standard, let alone Eames', but he can finally hear what the man's suit is saying.

He licks the man's lower lip and pulls away.

The American says, "Fuck this."

Then shoots Eames right between the eyes.

\+ + +

His killer is standing in front of him, rolling up the plastic tube that had been attached to the needle in his arm. "Rise and shine, princess."

He smirks.

Eames feels a brief and unusual urge to commit extreme violence.

He sits up slowly, and the man steps away to finish wrapping up the device they'd been hooked up with—the PASIV. The details that had been only a hazy notion in the dream—the briefing, the objective—come back in a rush. His killer is immediately replaced by another man, blond and handsome in an affable, American way. 

"Need a hand?"

Eames stands up shakily and finds to his irritation that this man is far too tall for Eames to stare down his nose at him.

"Any ill effects? Dizziness? Headache? Nausea?"

Eames does feel dizzy, is rocking a bit on his feet. He straightens. "Piss off."

His killer snorts, and the blond man is clearly hiding a smile as he raises his hands in appeasement. "We can do the debriefing later, when you're not so worked up."

Eames watches them go, waits until the door clicks at him reassuringly that they're gone. "Easy peasy."

"Pardon?" Miles asks.

"The phrase, written on the inside of his jacket lapel. 'Easy peasy.' And you might have warned me."

Miles pulls out a slip of paper from his own coat pocket and raises his eyebrows as he reads it. "Nicely done. I don't think he even noticed. And you'll have to excuse the Americans. They've only just started to consider the PASIV's use in subterfuge."

Eames shrugs. He can still feel the bullet pierce him. In the six weeks since he began doing actual dream runs he's always come out of the dream with a kick. "So who's the swish with the twitchy trigger finger?"

"Arthur Darling."

"And the arse with him?"

" _That_ is Dominic Cobb—my son-in-law, god help me."

"Ah." He hadn't even been aware that Miles had had a child. Probably for the best. "Would you like me to seduce her away from him?"

"Bugger off, Eames."

Eames salutes. "Anything for queen and country."

\+ + +

Miles and the Americans go to the pub after they've all written up their reports. Cobb and Miles talk about Mal, Miles's daughter, for ages. She is, by all reports, brilliant and beautiful and impossibly French. She and Cobb have two children together. Eames hates her for not being there and at the same time is glad she's not; he's in the mood to do something foolish. He drinks.

The other American, Darling, orders nothing but a Shirley Temple and sips it through a straw. He sits sullenly the entire time, the shadows under his eyes deepened by the pub's poor lighting. He looks young—not old enough to be in a pub, let alone shoot a man.

He wants him fiercely, can't even comprehend his attraction but feels it bubble under his skin like the fizzy pop in Darling's damn drink.

He waits for two minutes after Darling's headed for the loo, and follows him, finds him splashing water over his face. He catches sight of Eames in the mirror and turns. 

"You still pissed?"

"Pardon?"

Darling dries his hands on the backs of his thighs. "About me shooting you. You here to pick a fight over it?"

He wants to rough Darling up, but not for the dream. He's not the same prissy arsehole he was there. His clothes are rumpled and old, his tie half undone. Eames comes closer. Darling smells like soap and cream soda and clothes he's reworn a few too many times. 

He hadn't smelled like anything in the dream. "Is that what you want?"

Darling stiffens as Eames comes closer, but doesn't try to duck away. " _You_ followed _me_ , remember?"

"I did, didn't I?" Eames crowds Darling against the wall. He hadn't realized how much muscle he'd gained in basic training until now. "I owe you a bullet. And you owe me a kiss."

Darling's eyebrows rise. "In that order?"

Eames grins; he's beginning to feel the way he had in the barrack, like the whole world should sing along with him; anticipation a kite inside him, shuddering and aloft. "I'm not fussy."

"You're making a fuss right now."

"You did shoot me, darling."

Darling makes a pouty face.

"Call me Arthur. And you'd changed too much; the projections would have started shooting any second." 

"How could they? My own mind wouldn't attack."

Arthur rolls his eyes. "You sound like Mal."

Eames politely ignores that. "And what's the point of a world like that if not to turn things topsy-turvy?"

"That's what this one is for," Arthur says, and kisses him.

The kiss is nothing like the one from the dream. Arthur's lips are impossibly sweet, soft and a little dry so Eames licks them, nips until Arthur opens his mouth. Eames closes his eyes and surges forward, presses Arthur hard against the wall. 

Arthur pulls him in, rucks Eames' shirt up so he can run his cold hands up and down Eames' back, down into his trousers so he can grope Eames' arse. His cock is hard against Eames' as he thrusts against him, into the crook of Eames' hip and then the palm of Eames' hand when Eames reaches down and unzips him. His head falls forward when Eames shoves his fingers in Arthur's mouth, lets him lick his hand wet until he can wrap his spit-slick hand around Arthur's cock and stroke him, biting Arthur's lips now that they've gone swollen. 

Arthur's grunting with each twist of Eames' fist like Eames is fucking him—Eames _wants_ to be fucking him, more and more with every helpless twist of Arthur's tight hips. He ducks his head against Eames' neck, breath hot against Eames' skin, shoulders curved towards him. 

Arthur looks up again, face flushed as he pants. His eyes look bruised, his entire expression so twisted with encroaching orgasm that Eames almost lets go—and then he smiles. His cheeks dimple, eyes slitted with pleasure, and Eames can feel _all_ of him, every happy particle of his body.

Eames' orgasm hits him so hard he has to close his eyes. It's like he's coming for the first time, like he's _flying_ for the first time. Arthur's coming too. Eames can feel it, wants to taste it. 

He brings his hand up while Arthur sags against him and licks. 

Arthur's come is sticky and sweet, brings Eames back to himself slowly, like slowly being let go by a reluctant breeze. Eames sighs, feels all the tension drain out of him, Arthur still warm and pliant against him, and opens his eyes.

They're on the ceiling.

Bugger.

Arthur jerks as he realizes and clutches Eames, scans the room frantically. "Fuck— _fuck_. Are we dreaming?"

"No," Eames grunts, concentrates on letting them down slowly. They slide clumsily down the wall, and then Eames has to force his fingers to uncurl away from Arthur. He's come in his trousers; they're both a state.

Arthur runs hands over himself, up his arms and down his chest, as if to check that Eames hasn't changed any of his parts. He tugs on his own hair, like an angry child. "Why did you do that?"

Good bloody question. Eames hates that he has, that he’s ruined the best first kiss he’s ever had just by enjoying it. He wishes fiercely that he didn’t have any magic at all.

The thought terrifies him.

"Terribly sorry," he chokes out, and bolts out of the bathroom fast enough that he can't look back.

\+ + +

He hurries out the bar and down the street before Arthur can follow.

He hides himself in a crack in a brick wall and begins to pat his pockets before realizing he has neither cigarettes nor lighter. 

He can still smell Arthur, hear his little bitten off noises as he slowly gave in. It had been difficult to let go of him. He's still in there; Eames could go back, take him back to his flat and wash all the come off of him and see what he looked like when he was asleep.

"Looking for something?"

The accent's American, but the face is ethereal. 

He shouldn't be able to see Eames, let alone hold up a pack of expensive cigarettes. He doesn't seem to realize Eames is supposed to be hiding between colorful gang tags and chipped brick.

But Eames desperately wants a cigarette—anything to remove the taste of cherry from his mouth.

The man lights the fag, draws once to get it going, hands it over to Eames on the exhale. Saucy. 

But then, Eames is the one who reeks of come right now.

"Cheers." Eames takes a drag. The cigarette is warm from the man's lips. 

The lighter hisses as the man lights another for himself, clicks as he shuts and pockets it. 

Silence follows, a rare commodity in Eames' world, where his reflection reads him the morning paper and moonbeams, even years after he's ceased to need it, still sing him to sleep at night. The noise from the street is deadened, and the rest of the city around them seems to have tensed, as if waiting for something. Eames looks over to the stranger, to see if he feels it too—but the man has his eyes closed, his fingers curled around his cigarette as he inhales. He breathes out silently, comfortably, as if unaware that Eames is watching him, that the whole world is crouched speculatively around them.

His father had always hated silence, stillness. Every bit of magic he did had a prelude of song or dance or silly skipping that made Mary roll her eyes. The unhappiest days in Eames' life had been in oppressive silence, when his father had been too weak to do more than hold Eames' hand.

It's nippy out, getting colder. The temperature seems to have plummeted since Eames ran out, flushed and panting. He looks over at the other man again, finds him unaffected.

"You're shaking." The man notes—flicks ash off his cigarette and looks pointedly at Eames' quivering hand. 

Eames hadn't noticed. He forces himself to stop, before other things begin to tremble. He plays it off, shrugs and lets smoke spill from his mouth. "Just had a bit of a fright, is all."

The man looks at him archly. He has eyes like a mirror, strangely reflective even in the half-light of the street lamp. "And what's a man like you afraid of?"

Eames looks up from his hands and finds the man staring at him again, looking _through_ him, like he knows _exactly_ what Eames is.

Eames goes hot and cold. The ground rumbles underneath him, growling in a way he's never heard. He wonders for the first time if his family is not the only one of its kind and, startled into honesty, says, "Perhaps the same thing you are."

The man lifts his head slightly, smirks. "Falling?"

Eames doesn’t need any magic at all to know he’s got him now.

"No, becoming my mother."

The man's eyes widen. Eames searches his face for more, but sees only the man's high cheekbones, his pretty pink mouth. 

The man steps closer. 

He smells like cigarettes, expensive cologne, tea gone tannic in its cup. There's nothing sweet in him. When he's close enough to kiss he says low, "You're a very interesting man, Mr. Eames. I've been reading the reports on you. Miles is very impressed with your creativity."

Eames' ears begin to ring with faint music, someone's laughter far off. He can feel the man on him even though he's still inches away, dying to know what would happen if they touched. His body is a house of cards, his entire world narrowed down to the vibrating air between them. He's never met anyone like this man—and he hasn't even met him, doesn't even know his name.

Curiosity itches in him. 

He says, "I am, love—but I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage. Are you one of Cobb's men?"

"I'm not anyone's man. Are you?"

 _No_ , thinks Eames immediately, and then, belatedly thinks about Arthur. He scowls. "Who are you?"

The man smiles. "Torture, isn't it, wanting what you can't name?"

"You're a prick." Eames wants to disappear, turn into something else like he used to when he was in need of a bath and resentful. But the air around him has gone tacky, and he's stuck where he is, breathing in this stranger's air. The worst is that he can see the other man feels it too. His eyes have gone more glassy, his throat rippling as he swallows.

"My estate is near Sydney. I'm heading back there the day after tomorrow." He looks down at Eames' lips, once but with intent, before he steps away. "You should join me." 

Eames has to check himself from closing in on the man right now. The man's mouth has somehow turned pinker from distance, the ringing in Eames' ears no less seductive.

He doesn't even know his name, and for the first time in his life he has obligations: the army, dreaming, Miles.

Going back into the pub means listening to Miles talk about his daughter, Cobb talk about his wife, their children. 

Arthur is in there too, probably ready to demand an explanation.

Eames clears his throat, stamps out his cigarette. "That's, ah, terribly flattering of you to offer, but I can't be jetting off whenever I'd like. I work for the government, you know."

"Yes." The man inhales again, lets the smoke trail out of his mouth. It curls around him fondly as he begins to walk away. "And they work for me."

\+ + +

"His name is Robert Fischer," Miles says in his office the next day. He sounds extremely put upon. "He's son of the Fischer in Fischer-Morrow, head of PASIV's Aussie division and one of the original funders for our little endeavor. What in God's name did you do, Eames?"

"Relax, we shared a smoke. I didn't ask for a transfer."

"Well you must have done something, because he's insisting now that you supervise the testing his labs are doing in Australia."

Eames can't help the smirk. "Did he now?"

Miles' face goes red with anger. "Don't be so bloody flip—the Aussies are obsessed with mind defense, and I don't want to see you piss away all of your talent on that."

"But wouldn't you like to know what they're up to? The dreamscape isn't the only place where I'm good at finding secrets."

Miles obviously isn't pleased, but there's nothing he can do and they both know it. Eames isn't sure how much he likes that; joining the military and Miles' little project both involved taking orders but they were his own choices. Fischer isn't asking.

Then he finds a new suit on his bed, along with a note that says: _wear this when my driver picks you up tomorrow. 7 am._

Eames has never met a man like Fischer, and he could stand to disappear for a while—until Arthur can't quite remember what the ceiling felt like pressed against his back.

If Fischer turns out to be a bore, well, there's bound to be a chimney he can fly up through, a painting to drop into, a spare breeze to whisk him away.

He's in the suit by ten after seven. Fischer is sulking in his car when Eames makes his way down.

"You're late," Fischer hisses, but then his mouth goes slack when Eames slides into the car, close enough that his hand brushes Fischer's thigh. Fischer feels thin beneath his bespoke clothing, wiry and overheated.

"Going to punish me for it?"

Fischer's face goes comically blank for long seconds.

"Oh yes," he breathes finally, eyes glazed. "Off with your head."

\+ + +

Eames has traveled internationally, but only ever by umbrella and the occasional shooting star. Fischer has a private jet, with a stewardess who brings them champagne and then discreetly disappears so Fischer can spend the next four hours with Eames' cock in his mouth.

He starts slow, kneeling between Eames' thighs, spreading them, running his hands up Eames' legs over the fabric of his trousers. Eames has never seen a cocksucker look so superior about it. He runs his fingers through Fischer's hair until Fischer bats them away. "Hands by your side."

Eames will take orders on the battlefield when he's of a mind, has never considered doing so in the bedroom. Still, he's not one to look a gift blowjob in the mouth, so to speak, so he lies back and lets Fischer do all the work.

He only thinks of Arthur and his lovely, dimply smile once.

Fischer spends the first hour doing nothing but licking: the veins in his cock, his balls, the pre-come dripping down from the slit. He seems to like Eames' incessant babble but he doesn't pay the least attention when Eames begs for more. He doesn't hold Eames down when he thrusts up, just flits away until Eames is still again, his thighs and stomach rigid from holding himself down. He's panting when Fischer finally sucks him in, is gripping Fischer's hair with both hands before he knows what he's doing. Fischer looks up at him, eyes dilated to blackness, and lets Eames fuck his mouth for endless vicious seconds before he pushes Eames' hips down, his hands all bone. 

Eames comes three times in as many hours, and by the last he can hear the roaring air outside of the jet, every shrieking bird in the sky and all the moaning clouds. The whole world goes blind when he comes, one lascivious cosmic wink as Fischer swallows.

He's soaked in sweat when they're done. Fischer is crawling up his body, shrugging out of his clothes. His trousers are open and Eames can see come staining the front of them—quite a bit of it. He summons enough energy to feel smug.

"Let me," he says feverishly; he can barely lift his hands to reach for Fischer.

"Later." Fischer pushes him back down, curls up next to him without touching.

They sleep for the rest of the trip. Fischer is a surprisingly boneless sleeper; only his eyelids move, flickering as he dreams. 

Eames watches him for the last hour before they land.

It was a silly thing to do, running off with this man. But he doesn't regret it.

Fischer's house is a long ride from the airport and Eames is fretting by the time they reach their destination. Then he catches sight of the house.

"What do you think?" For the first time Fischer's arrogance falters. He sounds boyish, almost shy.

Eames brushes his hand along Fischer's shoulder blades, sees the tension in his mouth begin to dissipate. "It's wonderful."


	2. Chapter 2

****

Part Two

Eames was savaged by a fever once as a child, so hot he couldn't feel it anymore.

He spent days staring at the ceiling, watching it grow close and small again as he rose up and down on the bed. He can still remember the cracks on the wall that he'd counted, every spider in them that he'd befriended once he'd risen high enough to greet them.

His father had sworn up and down afterwards that he'd never moved, that he'd spent four days pale and still as death, barely breathing.

Sex with Fischer is like a fever dream. His house has seventy-five bedrooms and Eames is sure they've fucked in all of them by the end of his first three weeks there, but he's also sure that they've never left Fischer's bedroom. Every day Fischer draws the curtains against the relentless Australian sun and spend hours at a time mapping Eames' body with hands and teeth. He likes to finger fuck, lets Eames sprawl on his belly while he rubs his fingers inside him until sweat drips down Eames' back and the room stinks of his come.

He wanks when Eames is sated and half-asleep; Eames closes his eyes as the streams of Fischer's come land hot and sticky on his back and his ass, his stomach or chest. Fischer never cleans him up, lets it go dry and itchy before he wipes him off with a washcloth, rubs him down and sucks bruises onto his wet skin.

It's the best sex Eames has ever had.

Fischer is grudging about coming up for air, rarely lets them eat but likes to watch Eames when they do—he feeds him on occasion, downs champagne and then holds it in his mouth for Eames to swallow when they kiss.

He likes kissing Fischer, likes when he attacks Eames' mouth until his lips sting, likes it even better when he can tumble Fischer over and lick his mouth until he laughs and shoves at Eames' shoulders. He likes having Fischer's cock in his hand, the way he bites his lip and holds his breath until he can't anymore, fucking Eames' hand until he cries out and comes, eyes closed. Eames lives for his puzzled little scramble when he comes back to himself and opens his eyes, stares round as if he weren't where he expected to be.

Fischer hasn't fucked him, hasn't even asked. Eames is too lazy to press the issue but he is curious, just a little, after Fischer spends a decadent one morning licking Eames' arse, his hand wrapped tight around Eames' balls so he couldn't wiggle away.

It's not every man who will put his tongue in another man's arse, but not his cock. 

That's not his only curious inhibition, either: he still pushes Eames' hands off when he tries to pet his hair, wriggles away when Eames holds his arms, and can't bear it for more than a few minutes whenever Eames straddles him and dares to loom over him.

Also, he absolutely despises tea. 

Eames politely refrains from telling him that his come tastes like Earl Grey left too long in its cup.

\+ + +

He wakes up one afternoon, after a lengthy post coital nap, to find Fischer still asleep. His back is to Eames, the knobs of his spine visible as he curves over himself, not quite in a fetal position. Eames can see his girlish eyelashes, the crumpled moue of his mouth.

Then the phone rings.

Fischer jerks awake and stumbles out to get it, so Eames shuffles on the bed to steal the warm spot where he'd been lying. Fischer takes the call in the other room; the floorboards offer to tell Eames what he's saying, but Eames only wags his finger at them lazily.

"That was Browning." Fischer comes back after a few minutes, drops the phone on the bedside table and lies back down, pillows his head against Eames' back so Eames can't turn over and see his face. "I need to get back to the dream runs. We're off schedule."

"What's the schedule?"

"My father's not going to be happy," says Fischer, as if he hadn't heard.

"Tell him you were unavoidably delayed," Eames purrs, starts to turn over until Fischer stops him with a hand on his shoulder. Eames stills, confused when Fischer doesn't move either. But it's pleasant enough, sprawled on his stomach, with Fischer's warm weight on his back and the sun streaming in. 

Eames starts to drift.

"I'll have to give you the tour of the labs," Fischer says. His hair tickles Eames' back. "If you stay."

Eames is sticky and bruised and still feels feverish. He's also buzzing, more relaxed than he's ever been—and that includes the month he spent with a circus in the sky when he was nineteen, letting the acrobats lick him all over and feed him tea and ginger biscuits.

"I suppose I could tarry a little longer."

\+ + +

They wake in a glass forest.

"Where are we, love?" The trees are crystalline and beautiful, and there are no people anywhere, no sign of life but them. He can hear the wind whistling against the glass, like when he used to blow into a bottle as a child to make it hum.

"This is the place where things have no name," Fischer says low. He stares reverently at the tops of the trees, stretched high and near invisible overhead. "Or at least, not to be remembered."

"Pardon?" Eames isn't certain what names he's supposed to be forgetting.

Fischer begins to wander off, so Eames follows him bemusedly. "Why did you make this place, then?"

Fischer looks back, blinking slowly as he registers Eames' question. "It was somewhere in my head. I like it. One can be nothing here."

There is nothing else here: they are alone in a translucent dead world, and the only other soul here is walking away. This world is the inverse of the handful of other dreamscapes he's been in, where life had frothed like sea foam with every step he took. 

It's so quiet here, the shifting earth eating up their footsteps.

He says, "Robert."

The trees shatter.

Jagged spears of glass rain down on them. One stabs through Eames' thigh, arterial blood gushing against the pale glass. He bellows, falls, sees Fischer lying dead next to him, an enormous branch arcing above his back where it had pierced him. Blood drools out of his mouth.

Eames grits his teeth against the urge to vomit, but the earth starts roiling under him like it will heave any second. The air is growing hot, the glass beginning to wobble and melt. The sky is descending, turns a malevolent green, and the glass begins to grow claws. Fischer has gone a bloodless white, the worst part of this sick collapsing world.

Eames turns a glass branch into a handgun and shoots himself through the head.

Fischer is above him when he opens his eyes, and Eames grabs him before he's fully awake, pulling him awkwardly down on top of him. Fischer wriggles away, smoothing his wrinkled shirt, and looks wary. "I'm sorry."

"Come back here." Eames stands, but his balance is off. He lurches sideways and nearly falls. It makes Fischer come towards him, at least, to hold him up, so Eames can run his hands over him, checking.

"You know if we die in a dream we wake up," Fischer says slowly.

"I know." He knows, logically, that the wounds he's seen are invisible, but he can't shake the feeling that they won't be for long, that the emptiness in Fischer's head will eventually creep outside.

Fischer frowns. "You woke up before the timer."

Eames mimes a gun at his forehead. "Sped things up a bit."

"You had a gun? How?"

The question doesn't make any sense. "How did we dream with clothes on? We wanted them, so there they were."

"Is that how it is for you all the time?" Fischer is oddly breathless.

Eames finds it strangely endearing. "Of course."

"I see." A light begins to shine in Fischer's eyes. "Curious."

\+ + +

Miles is grumpy but thrilled with his first report, arranges a time for them to video chat under the pretense of interrogating Eames over a few details.

"Missed my pretty face, did you?" Eames is surprised by how glad he is to see Miles again, but perhaps he shouldn't be: Miles is, under his perpetual frown, more familiar than the few months they spent together should warrant.

"I don't know how you made it through basic training with that attitude."

"Sucked off all of my superior officers."

Miles makes a face. "Tell me that's not all you've been doing for the past few months."

Eames laughs. "Not _everything_. Things here aren't terribly different from where we came from.."

Miles hums, thoughtful.

"Has—anyone asked about me?"

If Miles notices him hesitate he doesn't mention it. "I told everyone you're doing a bit of research for me. No one will be nosy if they know what's good for them. My daughter has a new project going now, but I'm sure you can be briefed when you come back."

"Right. Of course. You know," he says, to change the subject, "I'm beginning to think you wanted me gone. You really have been remarkably placid about all of this kerfuffle."

"I did marry a Frenchwoman."

Eames is laughing as the video chat ends, but finds himself still at the computer ten minutes later, folding bits of paper into origami cranes and watching as they flutter off. He's spent his life in one place or another, tumbled and flown to a thousand tiny pocket worlds. Time has never had the same meaning until now, when people might miss him after he left, and time would march on without him.

He wonders if it had been the same for Mary.

The cranes drop when Fischer opens the door, fluttering gently to the floor.

"What did you tell Miles?"

Eames doesn't feel like explaining, so he pitches his voice low, "That I'm spending most of my time on my knees."

"Not enough," Fischer says, smirking, but then, "Do you miss it?"

"Being on my knees?"

Fischer waves a hand. "England. And—whatever you were doing there. I know I—we left abruptly."

Eames considers. Miles reminds him of a man he felt obliged to, but he doesn't miss his nagging need for rules and regulations, and the novel thrill of military discipline has long since worn off. He misses London, but not as much as he thought he would—as he wishes he did. 

His father had sworn up and down that as soon as he put a foot out of the city limits he'd be a puppet with cut strings. He used to fall into a heap whenever he said it, just to make Eames giggle.

Eames has never thought about it until now, how hard it is to stay in one place.

He's still thinking when Fischer fidgets, and Eames is brought back to himself. Fischer looks wretched, like something's eating him up inside, so Eames runs a thumb over the back of his hand. "Relax. I wouldn't be here if I didn't want to be. You certainly won't keep me should I decide to go."

"I know," Fischer says, insistent. "I know that."

\+ + +

They dream in Eames' head after that, and improvement is steady: the worlds become sturdier, his control even more refined. The dizziness when they wake up begins to abate.

It gets easier to shoot them both awake.

One thing Eames learns is that even his own head has a limit on how many changes it will accept: the initial landscape can be as outrageous as he likes, but his subconscious gets stroppier with every change he makes. 

That doesn't suit him, obviously. 

Fischer is less stuck up about it than Arthur was: his face lights up with boyish wonder whenever Eames does something exceptionally foolish, and Eames isn't above admitting it drives him to even greater heights. He turns a hospital into a carousel, makes the desks in a school dance and hangs a rope swing from the moon whenever it happens to be night.

On one lazy after-hours run he puts a dress on Fischer.

He cuts it to be flattering, but he doesn't expect just how much it suits him: Fischer doesn't just look like a beautiful man in a dress—he looks like a beautiful woman in a dress. 

Fischer sweeps an elaborate curtsey and then cocks an eyebrow. "Your turn."

Eames looks down and thinks, _why not?_

He skips the drag completely and turns into a woman, just for a lark. She's no one, really, a composite of women he's seen on the underground and in magazines, long legs he's admired absently from coffee shops. She has white skin and blonde hair and wide, serpentine eyes.

Fischer startles, lets the hem of his dress drop as he looks around. "Eames?"

"Right here, love." A saucy American accent to go with the white teeth. "Don't I look pretty?"

Fischer stares. "What the fuck did you do?"

"Switched things up a little." He bats his eyelashes. This body is lighter than a linen shirt, probably wouldn't even fool a mirror. Fischer is reaching out for his cheek, which will probably tear the whole thing down.

Then Fischer brushes just his fingertips along Eames's smooth cheeks, and Eames can feel the body shift under his touch. It feels like it must have dropped off, but there's no rasp of stubble against Fischer's hand. It's that silk whisper of hand against smooth flesh. Eames' stomach turns hectically, all the blood gone from his head; he feels pale, hot, _wet_.

Fischer hasn't destroyed the illusion. He's strengthened it.

Fischer leans in, breathes against Eames' ear. His breath is hot but it makes Eames shiver. He touches Eames' arm and he's a telescope, his entire body narrowed to that one point of contact, far away and magnified. "I want to fuck you."

"Do it in the real world," Eames says, and his voice should be rough but it's breathy instead. He doesn't even feel like a woman right now—he feels like a butterfly. "I want to feel it the next day."

Fischer's eyes light up, and in the next breath he has Eames' gun in his hand, and is aiming it at Eames' forehead.

Eames rubs the spot on his temple where the bullet had pierced him in the dream. "Were you waiting for me to ask?"

"What?"

"For you to fuck me."

"You're not going to ask," Fischer says absently, as he coils the PASIV back into its box and scribbles a few notes for the report later. "You're going to beg."

\+ + +

"Some day I want to fuck you in that other body," Fischer says afterward, when they're lying sprawled on each other in Fischer's bed. Fischer is curled up on his chest, androgynous from this angle, all soft curls and pale freckled shoulders.

Eames grunts, pets his hair. He's covered in bite marks, hoarse from babbling all the nasty filth Fischer seems to like. His arse is on fire and his muscles are cracked clay.

If Fischer ever touches him again when he's wearing that woman, he might stay that way forever.

\+ + +

Fischer fucks him with an unstoppered mania after that, so Eames hardly has time to think of what he has privately termed the Woman Incident until he finds himself in a new wing of the house one well-fucked afternoon. He's wearing nothing but a pair of faded trousers, and his lips are still swollen. The sun is hanging lazily in the middle of the room, and Eames feels especially light on his feet, in need of a new thing and a tad giddy with it.

There are portraits along the walls, where the light doesn't quite touch. They're all Fischers, from their pale fish eyes and dour expressions, and not a one of them looks good enough to visit.

Then he finds the woman.

The painting isn't like any Eames has seen before. She sits on a chair, her hands demurely in her lap. She's staring into the distance, but the painting tugs at him. He takes a step closer, but then the woman seems further away. He steps back again but it's no use, he's still there, where he was, a step away from where he is. He is suddenly aware of every expansion of his ribcage as he breathes; he's too big for his ribs, too small for this room, dwarfed in its silent expanse. The painting is a canyon, the woman is a bright light, he doesn't understand --

"Robert's mother, Alice." 

Eames turns, startled, and finds a man who absolutely must be Fischer Sr. He is watching the painting as well, his hands clasped placidly behind his back.

Her eyes are as blue as her son's, and wide set. She has white skin and blonde hair. "She's lovely."

"Father." Fischer interrupts from the doorway. He laces his hands behind his back as well as he comes towards them. "I wasn't expecting you."

"She went mad." Fischer Sr. studiously does not look at his son. "It runs in the family."

One long angry crack snakes across the ceiling. Fischer looks up, but his father does not; Eames wonders if he's too dull to notice, or if he's ignoring that too.

Eames has very little patience for the willfully blind.

"I thought manners did as well," he says, "But perhaps it skips a generation."

Fischer Sr. huffs a laugh. "Take care of my son, Mr. Eames. Heaven knows he can't manage himself."

The ground shuddered softly as he left, but if he noticed, he gave no sign.

"He didn't tell me he was coming." Fischer swallows. "Or I would have warned you."

Eames curls a hand around his neck, pulls him in for a kiss on the temple.

It appears Fischer's relationship with his parents is a bit fraught. Eames can hardly judge him for that.

Glass houses, and all.

\+ + +

Ten months after Eames comes to Australia, Fischer takes him to a fundraiser in a new grey suit. Fischer keeps a hand on him the entire time: on his arm, on his shoulder, the nape of his neck or the small of his back. It helps, a little, keeps him focused on something besides the little penguin men who come to kiss Fischer-Morrow's arse.

He wonders how many of them could be made to sing. He snickers.

Fischer glares at him, the same way he does when Eames is writhing too much for Fischer to suck him off the way he likes. Ordinarily it'd be a welcome tease, but now it makes things worse. Eames' leg starts to tap out a nervous rhythm, and he can already hear the music in his head, half-nonsense lyrics on the tip of his tongue. Already the room is beginning to lose its definition, colors and edges flirting with each other.

"What are you _doing_?" Fischer hisses, when they have a spare moment to themselves. The sibilance reverberates; Eames' head hurts, all his clothes too tight. "I didn't take you here so you could make a scene."

"Why _did_ you take me? This is awful. How do you stand it?"

"I—" Fischer is wide-eyed, a child caught in a lie. "Go get a drink. We'll leave soon. I need to find a few more people."

Eames sighs. Fischer obviously isn't having any more fun than he is. He pets the frowny spot between Fischer's eyebrows with his thumb, and makes his way over to the bar. Intoxication will only set the caterers dancing, so he ends up with a shirley temple.

It doesn't taste quite the same as the aftertaste on Arthur's tongue, but it's close enough. Eames smiles, wonders if Fischer is watching, what he'll do when Eames reaches the cherry.

Fischer is at his side before he's had his second sip. "Come on, we're going."

"I thought you wanted to talk to—"

"The car's waiting outside."

The ride is weighted, as if they were going down instead of forward.

Fischer breaks the silence. "If only I'd been five minutes earlier."

"Pardon?"

"You were fucking that little dormouse right before I met you, weren't you?"

Ah.

Eames has lost enough games of poker to know he gives himself away when he's angry. He rallies with a wink. "It took more than five minutes, love."

Fischer says nothing for the rest of the drive, sulks all the way to their bedroom.

"Don't be mulish."

"Don't be ridiculous." Fischer is absolutely pouting, his face scrunched up like a child who doesn't want to take his medicine. But Eames can't erase Arthur or the past, and frankly he doesn't want to, ill-advised ceiling orgasm or no. Fischer will have to learn to accept it.

Perhaps a spoonful of sugar is in order. 

He cuddles up behind Fischer, takes his tense shoulders and starts to knead them. Fischer ignores it for long stroppy seconds, but finally shudders out a breath and relaxes against Eames' chest. Eames rewards him with a plush kiss against his ear. "Let me fuck you."

Fischer lets out another shaky breath.

Eames kisses his neck, his cold earlobe. "You'll like it."

"Don't." Fischer pulls him closer. "Don't say that."

"Then let me show you instead." Eames runs his fingers through Fischer's hair, feeling his skittishness.

He takes his time: rubs Fischer's feet until he's cursing, up to the knot of his knees, sucks wet red bruises into Fischer's thighs. Fischer has never let him suck his balls before, but now Eames takes each one into his mouth, laves them with his tongue until Fischer knocks his cheek with his bony hip. He stretches him out even more slowly—just the slicked tip of his finger around Fischer's hole at first, circling patiently, while he kneels between Fischer's legs and settles him with one hand on his brittle belly.

"Not so bad, is it?" Eames asks, when he's pushed a finger in and Fischer's cock jumps.

The mirror in the loo shatters. "Don't say that."

Eames muzzles himself by licking Fischer's balls, Fischer's fingers twisted tight in his hair, pulling him away and closer. He's hot as infection when he finally pushes in, sucks Eames in so tight Eames has to stop, propped up on his elbows and huffing. It's so good, Fischer's cock so hard. Eames strokes it, wants Fischer to see how good it feels, how much higher he could go if he let himself.

" _Fuck_ you." 

Rattled, Eames starts to rear away—but Fischer snatches him down again, barking, "Fuck you, fuck, god _damn_ it."

Fischer won't let him go so Eames keeps going, cups Fischer's narrow arse and spreads him wide. He can't stop watching his cock finally sink in, keeps him full. Fischer babbles hateful filth, fits his fingers into the valley on the back of Eames' neck and comes without anything touching his cock at all.

He's quiet then. Eames comes very suddenly, while Fischer's eyes are still closed.

The bed frame has melted and reformed itself, and now it's blushing, trying to hide under the duvet.

He wishes they were on the ceiling instead. 

Eames untangles himself, goes to wash off. The floor of the loo is littered with glass, so he fits it back together carefully, smoothes it over until he can see his tired face. He looks terrible. 

The washcloth frowns at him through its folds, tries to reach for the backs of his ears. Eames sighs, lets it, like he lets Fischer cling when he comes back to bed. Fischer is an octopus, sticky and surprisingly strong.

"I'm sorry," Fischer mewls. "I'm sorry, please."

He chases Eames' mouth with his bitter lips, kisses him and kisses him, down his chest and stomach and then reverently over the head of his cock. He sucks another orgasm out of Eames in minutes, throat clamped around him desperately. Eames pets his hair and his freckled shoulders and the frantic threnody of his pulse.

As he regains his breath, Eames realizes their bed has migrated to the beach, at the edge of the water. The moon peers at them. 

It's quite cold, this far out, the winds quick as memory.

"My father is sick."

"Cancer?"

Fischer nods.

Eames curls him under the wing of his arm, waits for the sand to stop trembling.

He wonders how far he'd have to go, so tragedy couldn't follow.

\+ + +

Things begin to go pear-shaped.

Browning takes care of as much as he can: doctors, lawyers, soulless investors, the everyday indignities of a great man who has fallen ill.

Fischer tries to help. Eames follows him a handful of times to hospital, grows used to waiting outside the room with Browning.

Browning is a good man, a rare bird in business. He's always exhausted, so Eames has taken to giving him tea with a little magic mixed in. Browning has an American distaste for it—tea, certainly, magic, possibly—so Eames tells him it's Scotch.

"How long does he have?" Eames asks one time, as they wait for the inevitable bellowing and the chorus of nurses running in.

"Frankly I'm surprised he's held on this long."

"It's bad?"

"It's fucking cancer, of course it's bad. But I thought he'd go when she did. He's only had cancer for a little while but he's been dying for a long time."

"Ah."

Browning sips his tea. "Stubborn, I guess."

Eames wonders, if their situations were reversed, how long his father would have lasted after Mary died. He wonders if Mary's thought about dying.

\+ + +

Fischer fucks him brutally that evening: bites a bloody crescent into his lip and pulls his head back until it feels like it's going to snap.

The world doesn't stop spinning for hours afterward, and Eames has no idea if it's his senses reeling or the floor. He rolls away from Fischer, unmoored.

In his dreams he billows up in technicolor smoke, curled into letters.

\+ + +

It ends when Fischer's father decides to die at home.

Eames can feel the wing of the mansion that he's chosen as his deathbed curl in on itself, purring like a sick cat. Eames strokes the walls and wishes he had medicine for people as well as houses.

Fischer is dreaming more than ever now. He begs over and over for Eames to make things: creatures and ships and books no one has written. They play chess and Eames turns into other people. Everything is made of glass. Eames hates it but he doesn't know what to do, wants so badly to help and to run away -- can't do the first, won't do the second.

Fischer always decides for them.

They argue constantly, and it doesn't matter over what these days because they both know what it's really about, and they both know how it will end: Fischer pressing him into the wall, kissing his ears in lieu of saying he's sorry.

Then one day he stops.

\+ + +

His phone rings at exactly four p.m.

He finds Fischer out on the deck next to the pool, hunched over a drink, slowly burning in the afternoon sun. He frowns when he hears Eames' footsteps, looks up when he sees Eames on the porch and then blanches, as if Eames has already said what he's going to say.

"Eames—"

He holds up the phone. "That was Arthur."

Fischer freezes. "You can't—"

"Miles' daughter—Mal, Cobb's wife—is dead."

"What?"

"She's committed suicide. Leapt from a window."

Arthur hadn't said much more, and Eames tortures himself with speculation. He doesn't even realize Fischer is walking towards him until Fischer gently plucks the phone from his hands. He reaches out towards Eames' face like he wants to cup his cheek, but doesn't. "We can take the jet."

\+ + +

Miles tells him what happened in the kitchen, his voice low so the children don't hear him and hoarse from crying.

Phillipa and James are so very small, and they look lost without their mother. He never met her, Eames realizes with an unexpected pang. Mal was Miles' daughter and a mother to these children and Eames has no idea what her laugh sounded like.

He only realizes that he's scooped up the children once they've already gone digging through his pockets and pulled off his watch. He smiles awkwardly as James begins to explain some bit of nonsense to him, pulls a pound out of Phillipa's ear to stave off her whining.

Was this how it had started for Mary? He tries to imagine the first time his mother reached into her handbag and found it endless.

Miles begs Eames to watch them for a few hours while he takes care of some of the funeral arrangements. Eames would rather arrange the funeral himself—or piss glass—but Miles' face is so haggard he agrees. Miles leaves them in his New York flat, with Phillipa and James staring at him expectantly, waiting for him to produce another trick: a smile, a pound, their mother.

He lasts two minutes before he gives in and takes them for a ride on peppermint horses.

They're back by the time the front door opens. Eames braces himself for Miles' ragged exhaustion—or Cobb's—but finds Arthur instead, his face a careful blank. James and Phillipa shriek and clamber all over him in an instant.

Arthur is wearing unrelieved black, his hair is slicked back relentlessly and his back is so straight that Eames knows it's all a lie—like a child dressed for a wedding, shoes so shiny you know they'd been rolling in mud. Arthur's eyes are red and puffy.

"Miles said I'd find you here," Arthur explains, after they've given the children lunch to eat in the other room. Eames wishes he didn't still feel their small hands in his, didn't know just how fast their little hearts are going. "I'll be helping with the funeral. Cobb's in terrible shape, and we're pretty sure the police are going to haul him in any day now."

"What about James and Phillipa?"

"Miles said he'll take them for the next few days."

"And what about you?" Eames asks reflexively.

Arthur raises his eyebrows. "I'm sure Miles would take me too, if I ask real nice."

"You've somewhere to stay?"

"I like hotels."

"Let me know if there's anything I can do," Eames finishes awkwardly, wondering why he can't shut up. He blames it on Arthur's baby face, the distraction of Phillipa and James in the other room, sitting with their palpable confusion. They don't know that she's gone, he wants to explain to Arthur. They don't know that she's never going to come back.

"Thanks," says Arthur. "I'll do that."

\+ + +

Fischer has a flat in the city, had given Eames the key when they separated at the airport. He's waiting when Eames finds it, blindsides him as soon as he's past the threshold and pushes him against the door.

Eames shoves at him, caught off guard, but Fischer isn't attacking him, only grabbing his hands and trying desperately to wriggle closer until Eames relents. Fischer sighs as Eames wraps his arms around him and then bites his neck and shoulders feverishly until he wraps his hand around both their cocks and demands, "Give it to me, Eames. Please, please, come on."

He sags after they've both come, so Eames turns and wraps an arm under his shoulders, around his ribs. They only make it to the couch before Fischer pulls him down, kisses him until his lips go numb.

"We're a state." He moves to fetch something to wipe them off with, but Fischer scrabbles at his back, so he lies back down instead—tries not to crush Fischer with his weight until Fischer pulls hard enough and he just gives in and lies down, lets Fischer pet his hair while they doze.

Eventually, he says, "I have to go back."

He looks up. Fischer is smiling sadly. "I've heard that before."

"Miles is a wreck. Cobb is a mess and there are the children to consider." He cups his hand around Fischer's head because he looks so small and proud now, like a cat in a tree. "I'll come back."

Fischer's expression tightens, until there is only the smile and nothing around it. "I've heard that before too."


	3. Chapter 3

****

Part Three

All work on the PASIV project stops while the possibility looms that it causes insanity, or worse yet, scandal.

Eames gets his own flat and makes sure the windows face north and south and there are only modern splashes of paint for art on his walls. He doesn't want to float away, or wind up drifting down some fantastical river someone had imagined once.

Arthur takes care of the children, although no one has asked him to and it's really Cobb that needs the most looking after. No one has asked Eames to do anything but the children have gotten their sticky little hands on him and now he can't stay away. He brings them sweets and stories he says he's made up.

It doesn't hurt either that they're always with Arthur, who retains only the bitter remnant of a smirk these days but still has a bit of a swagger to him.

Eames would like to give him sweets too, if he's quite honest.

They go to the playground. 

The children immediately turn the swings into a ship, where Phillipa is the captain and James the merman first mate. Eames can see the water lapping at the prow, Phillipa's proud hat with its enormous plume, James' grin as he promises he'll get them through the rocks. There's a crocodile that circles around them and ticks like a bomb.

Arthur is quiet next to him. Eames looks over, unsure what he'll find: affection, probably, nostalgia, the slightly condescending pleasure adults take in the rules children make up for themselves.

Arthur's face is shadowed, his fingers rubbing anxiously together.

He notices Eames looking, and turns to look at him. "Miles is gonna take the kids for a long weekend at his place upstate when we get back. You got plans?"

Eames hesitates. Arthur seems like the pragmatic kind of fellow who'd handle his grief by inviting a man over for dinner and a blowjob and then skip dinner. He hasn't forgotten that first frenzied time with Arthur, and he did depart on poor terms with Fischer, but—"Perhaps only dinner."

Arthur shrugs. "Cool."

\+ + +

Arthur's place is a sty.

All of his things prick their ears as Eames walks in. He has to check them frantically as Arthur rustles about in the kitchen, keep them from marching off to where they ought to be.

"Peace pipe?" Eames turns and finds Arthur holding up a bong.

"I thought we were sharing a meal."

"You were expecting wine and candles?"

"I'd settle for a takeaway menu."

Arthur laughs. "Help yourself."

Eames rummages through the cabinets, checks the refrigerator, and is deeply unimpressed. "Do you have anything besides candy?"

"There's beer."

"You're revolting."

"You like it."

Eames turns and finds him grinning, all dimpled American charm. 

Bugger.

They order Chinese and light up on the parlor floor. Eames has never tried this particular vice and he discovers it has fingers, rolling over and in him until he giggles. He and Arthur don't talk, but it's a peaceable silence. The ceiling is suddenly very engaging, the floor quite comfortable. Eames drifts, wonders idly what Arthur is seeing and feeling right now. He wonders if Arthur will want to fuck him, what he ought to do if he offers.

"Hey," Arthur rolls up, his eyes heavy-lidded. "You have a nice smile."

Eames grants him one, surprised and unaccountably chuffed.

\+ + +

Eames has a poker chip he likes to roll around his knuckles whenever he's bored.

"You shouldn't show me that," Arthur states bluntly. 

"Pardon?"

Arthur gestures at the poker chip. "Your totem. You shouldn't let me see it so close."

"Get as close as you like." Eames flips the chip at him. Arthur catches it, frowning. "Don't need a totem."

"Are you fucking—" Arthur takes a calming breath that only angers him more. "How can you be so irresponsible after—after what's happened?"

"It's not as though hers did Mal any bloody good. And they were even her idea, for Heaven's sake."

"Don't talk about her that way. You don't even know what you're talking about."

Currently Eames has four compatriots in dreaming: one is half-mad, the other too grief-stricken to function, another so frightened he'll follow suit he's tearing himself to bits trying to take care of everything. The last committed suicide and abandoned her children because she was utterly insane. 

"Dear boy," he purrs, aims to sting, "I am the _only_ one who knows what he's talking about."

Arthur rises from the table and marches out of the room.

Eames breathes and the house breathes with him, until his anger has dissipated and the breeze beckons him outside. Arthur is sitting on the steps of the back porch, elbows on his knees and head hunched. Eames sits down next to him and is relieved when he doesn't move away, when the world stays steady under him. The cool night air buzzes faintly with crickets. They sound disapproving.

"I shouldn't have said what I said."

Arthur fidgets, mouth an unhappy line, but when he speaks he only sounds tired, "That's not an apology."

"They've never been my strong suit. Fortunately, I excel in the art of petty bribery; let me take you to dinner."

"I'm a picky eater."

"I'll think of something."

"You always do." Arthur lies back, interlocks his fingers over his stomach, stares up at the sky. "Cobb's not doing too good. He hasn't said anything but I know he's thinking of leaving, getting out before they can haul him off to jail for real."

"You really think they would?" He knows Mal has made trouble for Cobb with the psychologists' notes, but that's hardly evidence.

"He does. Cobb's like a dog with a bone once he's got an idea in his head." Arthur closes his eyes. "Don't you worry about getting lost?"

Eames knows what Arthur is talking about, but not how to explain. He can't tell Arthur that this world and any other have been his oyster since he was born. He knows what the world feels like and he knows what a dream feels like and he's about as like to confuse one for the other as he is his left hand for his right foot. 

He looks at Arthur, lying on the polished wood of the porch, and thinks with sudden warmth that it's Arthur's nature to try to put everything right—Arthur, who clearly hates ties with all of his contrary soul and still wears one every day, caging himself up so he can put on a brave face.

"I've developed a foolproof test for determining a dreamscape."

"Yeah?"

Arthur's eyes fly open when Eames pinches him, around his ribs where it will tickle. Arthur lashes out, nearly snaps Eames' wrist by reflex before Eames pulls him over and straddles him, pressing down on Arthur's biceps. Arthur wriggles until Eames lets his arms go but doesn't struggle any further. Eames looms, just to see what he'll do: Arthur rolls his eyes.

"You think you're so fucking clever." He sounds grumpy but his eyes are crinkled, dimples beginning to show.

The night air is suddenly too hot, and Eames' mouth is stuck between a kiss and a grin. "Unbearably."

\+ + +

Eames cooks.

The kitchen helps, but Arthur needn't know that.

He gambles and makes things he hasn't seen anyone over the age of six eat: chicken nuggets shaped like dinosaurs, chips with ridges, miniature hot dogs wrapped in pastry.

Arthur's face goes slack when he sees it. "Really pulled out all the stops, huh?"

"Shut it, this is your culinary wet dream."

Arthur gives him a look meant to be intimidating, but undercut by the fact that he is obviously thrilled and absolutely adorable.

He inhales everything and goes back for thirds. In fact he barely talks through the meal, except to say, "It's good."

Then, when they've settled into a bottle of wine, "Cobb is using Mal's old totem."

"Why's that?" Eames asks, wary of starting another row.

"Because he's a miserable fuck, is why." Arthur rubs his face. "He's convinced he's got to leave the country before he gets arrested."

"I doubt the children would do well with that. They're a bit young for exile."

Arthur actually laughs, a sad little huff. "You and the fucking kids. He wouldn't take them. He can barely look at them these days."

Eames hadn't even considered that. He hates even the idea, wants to crush it—to snuff it out and salt the earth. "He can't possibly."

Arthur seems surprised by his vehemence. "He really loved her, Eames. You didn't know Mal, or you'd understand. It was impossible not to love her. She was like a fairytale."

"Much good that will do the children. I don't care if he's a grieving widower, Arthur, he can't abandon his family."

"It's not like that."

Eames has to bite his tongue, calm all the filaments in the light bulbs so they don't explode. "You do know him better than I."

The moment passes.

Then Arthur asks, "So why'd you take off so quick, anyway?"

"Pardon?"

Arthur gestures with his glass. "With Fischer. Did I scare you off?"

"No."

"You're not a very good liar, Mr. Eames."

Eames hums and drinks his wine.

Arthur kisses him at the door. His lips are still a little greasy from dinner and he smells like the rain outside. It's perfect and Eames can't even enjoy it because ninety percent of his energy is devoted to keeping them both on the ground.

He makes Eames need to do magic. 

He makes Eames wish he couldn't.

\+ + +

Two weeks later they're in Arthur's flat and Eames loses his patience and snaps his fingers while Arthur's in the loo. Everything has marched or flown or danced to its proper place before Eames thinks better of it, and Arthur comes back before Eames can even start to return anything.

Eames freezes. He's not sure what he's afraid of, exactly. Arthur was clearly surprised when he'd come out of his post-fuck glow to realize his shirt was rucked up against the ceiling, but he hasn't made anything of it since. And he can hardly call the coppers for a flat that suddenly has full closets and a visible floor.

"I had a system," says Arthur. 

"Now you have a better one."

Arthur scrubs a hand through his hair. "You're gonna have to explain it to me, someday—this system of yours."

"It's a date," Eames promises, although he never quite finds the time. Arthur doesn't press, so Eames returns the kindness by never asking how _exactly_ Arthur became so comfortable with magic.

\+ + +

Fischer calls him after months of silence. They're in the playground again, Arthur sharing a bench with him. It's a beautiful day. "My father's dead."

"Oh, Fischer, love."

Fischer tells him the whole story: his last words, the pinwheel.

Disappointed, for Heaven's sake.

"It was really bad at the end. He forgot where he was all the time—said he'd stolen something. And he kept going on about cards, and a trial—and about my mother."

"What did the doctors say?"

"He could barely look at me, Eames. I couldn't—I kept trying to talk to him but he wouldn't even fucking look at me."

Fischer is continents away but Eames can still feel him here: shadowy clocks tick insistently in his ears.

"What did you want to tell him?"

"What's it matter when he's fucking dead? Jesus, Eames, are you even fucking listening?"

"I'm sorry, love. What do you need?"

"I need you to come back."

"For the funeral? Of course, when is it?"

"No. Don't come to the funeral. I need you back here, with _me_."

"I know, but I can't—it's not that simple. Tell me when the funeral is and I'll—"

The call ends abruptly, the dial tone ringing in Eames' ears even as he puts the phone down.

"Bad news?" Arthur asks. They're at the playground again.

"Fischer Sr. is dead."

Arthur nods.

James runs up to show Eames a flower, giggles when Eames uses it to tickle his ear before scampering off again.

"So what's Fischer's deal, anyway?"

"His father just died."

"No, I mean before. You ran off to another country with him the day after you met him. What was it?"

"Jealous?"

Arthur snorts. "Curious, more like. I only knew one other person that ever had that kind of hold on anybody, and Fischer doesn't remind me of her."

"You don't even know him."

"So tell me about him."

"Fischer is—well, he's a wee bit lost, isn't he? Especially now."

Arthur shrugs. "He's not the only one."

"Then you should understand."

Arthur scoots closer. "I know what it's like to have a problem you don't want to face, Eames. But we all have to grow up sometime."

"And Fischer hasn't?"

Arthur sighs. "I'm not talking about—you're kind of impossible sometimes."

"I'm impossible _all_ the time."

They fall silent again for a time. Arthur doesn't seem ruffled, but then he never does until his face goes completely shadowed, the way it did right after Mal had died.

He seems resigned, like a man burying a dead dog. No one ever expected the dog to live forever, but that didn't make it hurt any less.

Eames wants the pigeons to carry them away, a great flock of them until they both felt light as air. The children could come with them. James would dig holes in the clouds, and the birds could braid Phillipa's hair.

"Do you want to come home with me tonight, Arthur, after we take the kids home?"

Arthur looks up, surprised and delighted and dimpled. "Sure."

\+ + +

The sex is exactly as sweet as he thought it would be.

Arthur laughs at every possible juncture and smokes a joint in between rounds. His breath is dry and bitter and his come is sweet as sugar. Eames licks his balls for an hour and the silly sweaty spot behind his knees and then his toes until Arthur kicks him in the face reflexively and can't stop apologizing until he's got Eames' cock in his mouth to shut him up.

His face is blissful when Eames fucks him. Eames doesn't even try to stay on the bed. They don't go far, but it takes ages to get there and by the time Eames' head knocks against the ceiling he's forgotten which way is up at all, can't understand why the bed doesn't fall down on top of them.

He curls up with his arm around Arthur's bony ribs and wants everyone he's ever known to see them right now. Arthur would like all of his uncles; they could laugh together.

"I can take you anywhere."

"Not everywhere."

"Tell me," Eames begs. "I can draw it for you. Anywhere."

"It doesn't matter." Arthur looks him in the eye, confesses, "I can never go back."

Eames sighs. Arthur's is an old man's regret, and there's no magic for that. "Not even in a dream?"

"Not even in the place between asleep and awake."

Eames draws the covers over both their heads and draws his favorite place to go, until the moonlight is bright enough that Arthur opens his eyes. His mouth twists and he clutches Eames' wrists. For one harsh second Eames believes Arthur will strike him—but then he relaxes, breathes out like he'd been inhaling a joint.

The water is warm, built up around them so that they rest at the edge of the lagoon. It's not the place where Arthur cannot go, but it does the trick: Arthur relaxes against him, his back to Eames' front. He can feel Arthur's heart battering away. "We can stay here for as long as you like."

Arthur breathes deeply. His eyes are closed again.

He says: "No one can run away forever, Eames."

\+ + +

They take the children to the aquarium.

"We have to do something about Cobb."

Eames can't help but chuckle.

Arthur frowns. "What's so funny?"

"Nothing—absolutely nothing—only I was thinking the same about Fischer."

After that it's easy.

The plan is complicated but the idea is simple: as Cobb drives into someone's head, he'll be going deeper into his own. Miles has an architect and Arthur's found an investor. All they're missing is someone to sic Cobb on.

"I can take care of that."

He expects Arthur to bicker over it, but he doesn't. He doesn't know whether he's relieved or angry.

"Cobb has gone insane," Eames says to Fischer over the phone. "We have a plan to take care of him, but we need your help."

"No, you don't."

"I can't do it without you."

A harsh exhale. "What do you want from me?"

Eames explains the plan. He waits a long time after he's finished before Fischer says, "Why me?"

This is the trickiest part. "Cobb doesn't know you, and we've set it up as an inception for a business rivalry, so you'll be a plausible mark. Inception only works if you can't trace the origin of the thought, and since you're already in on the game you won't be affected. You just have to play along."

"It still seems like I'm putting a lot more on the line than anyone else."

"Not as much as you might think: Arthur and I will be doing the heavy lifting, with Miles' help and a few others. All you'd have to do is act the part."

Fischer says nothing.

Eames plays his trump card: "I can't leave until Cobb is sorted."

He doesn't say where he'd go afterwards, but he knows Fischer is thinking about it.

The reason Eames knows inception will work in a dream is that it works in the real world too.

"I'll get back to you."

\+ + +

Three days later Fischer calls back. "Will it be dangerous?"

"Yes. Do you trust me?"

Fischer says nothing for a while, and then, "Do I have to work with the dormouse?"

Eames laughs. "Very little. I'll be with you the whole time."

"I know you will," Fischer says, and hangs up.

\+ + +

When he arrives, Fischer looks the same.

He has the same unruly hair, the same pale eyes, the same tendency to swan about with a sneer on his lips because he is so very anxious all the time. He's a little shite, the same as he always has been, fragile and angry.

None of the others like him. 

None of the others will have him; he belongs to Eames—to Eames and his father and his mother, whose shadows creep over him further every day.

Eames can fix it. He can sweep all the shards of Fischer's anxiety into a bin and take it out with the PASIV needle. Fischer knows about the Cobb scheme but Eames has seen the landscape of Fischer's mind, knows it will be the easiest thing in the world to turn it on its head one more time. He could make Fischer believe the sun was the moon, nevermind something he actually wanted to believe—like that his father loved him, and that he was his own man. 

That he would never need someone like Eames again.

Fischer pulls him away from the others the first chance he gets and then his courage seems to fail him. He holds Eames' wrists tightly, skin dry and cold. "Eames, I—"

Eames waits, letting his wrists go numb, knowing he holds Fischer just as surely.

"You're so beautiful," Fischer says, like he's admitting it. "You're like a dragonfly."

He frowns, small and unhappy like a child who must go to bed.

"I've missed you too."

He has: no one has ever needed him the way Fischer does.

"Eames." Fischer's supercilious eyelashes fall.

When he touches Eames' face with his cold fingers the world rings; Eames can hear colors and smell the number three.

Eames wants to run away, because he knows what he has to do.

He doesn't want it to end.

\+ + +

If man is dangerous prey, then a dreamer is the most dangerous of all, and a dreamer in a tail spin of guilt and self-loathing is the equivalent of an angry mother bear when you've got nothing but a newspaper roll.

But they're prepared. 

Cobb falls for it hook, line and sinker—and why wouldn't he, poor chap, so addled out of his wits that he can hardly tell the difference between life and death, never mind truth and lies.

Eames worries that Fischer won't be tricked so easily. He puts on Browning's face with no small amount of trepidation.

It's a relief when Fischer doesn't hesitate, switches from pretending to believe to believing in half a heartbeat.

Browning has been a second father—a real father—to Fischer since he was a boy.

Eames is going to change that too.

It's a sorry business, Eames decides, saving someone's life.

\+ + +

Only Arthur makes him smile, stuffing himself in a three piece suit so he can run around his stuffy hotel.

He's angry and sarcastic in turn, plays his role to the hilt by lying as little as possible. Half the trick is convincing Cobb that they had no idea that Fischer's mind would be armed, but Arthur looks properly abashed. Eames is ridiculously proud of him.

He watches Arthur's face blur as he lies on the floor of the hotel and knows that his sleeping body couldn't be in better hands and wishes all the same that Arthur were coming with him.

\+ + +

Three levels down, Eames stands still on the snow.

He can see the mountains, and the complex, and the dots of people and bodies and splashes of blood. He knows every possible path in this closed circuit, and every floor of the complex. He's added tunnels, if he needs them.

He isn't lost. He just doesn't know where to go.

The projections are hounding them, the earth shuddering from the levels above. Cobb is on his way to Limbo and eventually salvation, although he doesn't know it yet. 

He's certain Arthur has everything under control one level higher.

It's up to Eames now. 

The trap's been laid, and Fischer has long since entangled himself in it. A few more steps, a snatch of forged memory, and he'll forget his father ever died hating him with his final breath. The weight of disappointment will be gone from his shoulders, and he'll float away. All because he's trusted Eames, and Eames wants to help him, badly enough that he'd betray his trust.

He won't back down, but he doesn't know if he should watch. Fischer had been so hopelessly vulnerable, in the forest of glass. How can Eames watch him open up the vault of his mind?

He stands in the valley until he starts to go blind from the glare.

He almost doesn't notice the rabbit racing by on its hind legs, so white it's near invisible in the snow.

\+ + +

It's a large rabbit, especially when it rears up on its haunches and stares at him curiously. Its eyes are black.

It hops away deliberately, staring back every so often like an anxious dog.

Eames follows him.

It leads him to the complex through a winding route of snow, but Eames follows placidly, along through the tunnels. He doesn't want to go, can't stand the thought that Fischer might see him and realize what's happening before the inception can occur—but then it might be worse to see Fischer fall for it completely, to watch him eat up the lie and become whole again and never need Eames the way no one else has in his life.

The rabbit leads him right to the heart of the complex, where Eames watches Fischer open the chamber.

His eyes are wide but fearless as kneels by his father's bed and listen to the words that his own mind is telling him, the ones that will save his life.

Arthur is here for Cobb, and for Mal, but Eames had only ever wanted this moment. He's surprised how sad it makes him, watching Fischer tell himself a lie that will make his life so much easier. He has no doubt that the inception will take hold; Fischer has never quite been able to tell what is real and what is not, even less so when he clearly wants so badly for this to be the truth.

Perhaps it's because, no matter what Fischer thinks afterwards, Eames will always remember what Fischer's father really had been. 

But as Fischer stands, his hands shaking, Eames thinks ruefully that it's because Fischer won't be his anymore. Fischer was a tether, the only one that could ever hold him.

Eames has done what was necessary to let Fischer be the man he was always meant to be, and he does not regret it, but he lets himself lament it for the artificially lengthened time that passes until the kick.

\+ + +

"Did it work?" Fischer asks, while they wait for their luggage. His expression hasn't changed, but he's lighter on his feet, the world no longer weighing so heavily on him. His father is dead and his godfather exposed and his lover is leaving but he is happy—because of what they've done to him, what Eames has done.

Eames knows that a good man would feel guilty, that his father would, but he doesn't. He feels sorrow, looking at Fischer, but it's not the same thing. "Like a charm."

He is his mother's child, driven to help children of all ages, but born to come and go. 

He kisses Fischer on the cheek and watches him walk away.

It's a new feeling, that acceptance; Eames would worry about its origins if he weren't so certain of the source.

Arthur doesn't quite smile when Eames finds his way over, but his eyes crinkle. 

"You should see my place in LA."

"Is it as bad as your other flat?"

"Worse. But I'll let you clean it and buy me real groceries, if you want."

"If that's what you'd like," he says—and realizes he's heard those words before. "But first I need to see a man about a dog."

\+ + +

He finds his mother at the bottom of the ocean, where little lipstick creatures are stroking her hair. It's cold down here, dark; he's only located her because a whale had hurried him along, nudging him forward with its broad forehead.

She looks up at his arrival, more surprised than he's ever seen her.

"I'm sorry," he says. He offers her the picture back, still warm from where he'd kept it tucked into his chest pocket.

"Keep it," she says. "I remember him very clearly."

Only a short time ago, he might have mistaken her tone for severity.

"It's yours," he assures her, and offers it again.

She takes it, soothes the hopelessly creased corners. His father's smile seems brighter when she holds it.

She looks up at him, and the features he remembers as crystalline are blurred. "I—"

She bursts into tears. Weeping is less dramatic underwater, the tears invisible, but when he pulls her in close he can feel the warmth of them against his shoulder.

Fischer will never forgive Eames for leaving because he will never understand what Eames did in the first place, won't think of him at all beyond the occasional dream about the magical man he used to fuck. He can grow up now, and grown ups tend to forget him. 

That knowledge hurts; he hugs his mother tighter. He wonders how many children she's watched grow up, how many she's had to leave behind. He wonders how old she is, how old he'll live to be.

When she's wept herself to exhaustion, he takes her to a flowerbed and tucks her in, watches her sleep awhile before he remembers that he has other goodbyes to make.

\+ + +

Cobb looks better now, eyes clear and children in his arms, on an easy chair on the porch. Miles has aged a thousand years, but he stands straighter. They nod when they see him, neither moving to embrace him. Arthur is standing by the door, deliciously unkempt like he's just woken up. He smiles, hands in his pockets.

The children latch onto Eames' legs immediately.

"Can you bring our mama back too?" James asks, while Phillipa stares at him with the kind of gravity that means she knows his answer.

"Afraid not, love."

"But you're magic!" James insists.

"I am." Eames is a con man and comfortable with lies, but this is true: "But you don't need my magic now."

"Why not?"

Because he has brought their father back to them, finally let their mother go. Because they have begun to realize now, what it means that he is there and she is gone. Because there are other children elsewhere who need his help. 

Because there are some things that magic and the magical cannot do. He cannot regret. He cannot remain.

Eames says: "She's with you already."

James watches him a moment more and then nods solemnly, lets Phillipa clutch him.

He knows he will see them again, when they're older and have forgotten what it was like to ride a peppermint horse. That's all for the best: missing someone who travels by wind is too painful for most people to bear.

He looks over at Arthur, wishing he could offer more.

Arthur shrugs, eyes warm.

\+ + +

He wants to take Arthur to the circus in the sky, feed him gingerbread made of stars and go dancing with their shadows. He wants to shoot them both to Limbo, where the breeze of a moment won't reach them for an eternity.

He fucks Arthur against the ceiling and thinks that Arthur knows.

Eames waits tensely for the Arthur to say something about it, remembering his father begging Mary to come back soon. He hasn't promised Arthur anything, but neither had Mary, and that hadn't helped one bit. 

Promises and tuppence will feed the birds.

They float gently back down onto the bed, while the silence stretches on.

Arthur must realize what Eames is waiting for, because he explains: "I don't say goodbyes."

"Worried you might cry?"

Arthur's lip twitches, kissable. "Goodbye means going away, and going away means forgetting."

Eames gives in and kisses him, but when he pulls away the kiss is still there, teasing. "That is absolute nonsense."

Arthur taps some invisible tattoo onto his chest, one dot over his heart and then a second to its right.

"The wind will change again, you know." It's the best he can offer.

"I'll keep my window open." Arthur seems satisfied.

Eames thinks, with the kind of bubbling lightness that means he's going to float away soon, that he is too.

He sleeps straight on til morning.


End file.
